Exhausted but Feeling Better

Farming Fun

Yesterday I spent my usual five hours at the farm. It flew by as I met new people and got to know a little about each of there lives. I dug holes for herbs in two long beds and now my hole digging arm is killing me. I have a raw spot on my thumb but no blisters this time. City life has done little to prepare me for the life of a farmer.

I also found a tick on me at the cook out at my moms house. I freaked out a little bit when I saw it and and threw it but that is the first tick I have ever seen. I was not so crazy when I went looking for it. Somehow it got on my hubby's knee when he bent down to look for it. So now I know that I need to have my hubby check me in the spots that I can't see for ticks each time I come home.

Loosing Weight
All this work has left me with little time to worry about what to snack on next or working out. That combination has brought me to a place where I have lost about five pounds in about 3 weeks. So I am pretty happy about the results. I am thinking the first side effect of farming is sore muscles and the second is weight loss. It doesn't seem to be a quick weight lose program but it seems to be rather effective. Not only am I loosing weight but I feel stronger and I can do more each time I go.

While I am tired today I feel much better than I have the last 11 days and that really helps me to see all the good in my life. I love my life right now and I am happy to be alive.

Sustainable Living Progress in Toledo Ohio

Weather in Toledo Ohio


Well I live in Toledo Ohio and I am really starting to wish I lived in Florida or somewhere else that rarely gets snow. We have had a few beautiful days even one day that was near eighty degrees but right back into the just above freezing temps. I think that I have some seasonal depression because I am actually very happy with my life right now and the direction it is taking but I have so much trouble getting motivated. This is causing me to think we may need to talk about moving further south when we are ready to move.

My Progress On Sustainable Living

As many of you know one of my goals in life is to learn to make more of my own food. I have not been able to plant anything this year because of the weather. I do have a tray of seeds that I started yesterday but other than that I am waiting a bit because my kitchen is not big enough to cook in and have plants in there all day as well. I need to be able to put them on the porch during the day then bring them in at night.

I am learning to cook things from scratch even though I have to rely on the grocery store for my ingredients at this time. I hope to have less reliance on the grocery story as my plants grow and my chicks grow up. I also hope to find a few places to volunteer that will teach me how to live as much as possible off the land I am on now. I think I have a few things starting to line up but I don't want to jinx that by posting about it just yet.

I purchased six hens for laying eggs, fertilizing my yard and taking care of my mosquito problem. Okay you got me it was after I bought the chickens that I realized they would be for more than eggs. From what I hear they are going to help me make a naturally inviting backyard. I am loving caring for them right now and I am really hoping I can eventually raise my own meat birds too.

Raising Food VS Buying Food

I have been reading a lot about chickens and how they are treated in the agriculture business. In big poultry houses they are housed in tiny cages and often debeaked and they are either fattened up for consumption or they are dropping eggs to meet our growing demand for convenience. I don't this like it at all! I know from my research that most animals we consume in high quantities are treated in a similar fashion. Now that I know I wish to gradually reduce my dependence on these animals from traditional grocery stores and meat markets.

Also the fruit and veggies we eat are full of toxins from unnatural fertilizer to many different pesticides. I would love to be a great organic farmer but if what I am reading is correct you are safer if you grow your own veggies and just apply pesticide as needed. As far as I can tell large agricultural businesses spray more than one pesticide and they spray on a schedule. They are in the prevention of pests business because they don't have the time or the resources to inspect crops daily. 

Call to Action
It all has me wondering if what I eat today is poisoning my body. I don't want to get all crazy and tell people they have to change their lives all at once. If you do a little research and decide you feel the way I do spend a few moments thinking about what you can do today to change things. I am not changing things all at once but I am taking baby steps toward my goals.

If you live in the Toledo Ohio area and you would like to start a group to discuss these topics I can set it up.  Just email me(sundcarrie@gmail.com )or comment on my blog and I will start planning a monthly meetup or an online message board. Whatever works best for everyone.

Subheadings for Blog Posts and Other Lessons

Subheadings to Make Your Post Easier to Read

I have been blogging for quite some time now and I have never thought about why some people use subheadings within their posts and some people don’t. I submitted an article to Tribal blogs and gave them permission to change it because I was not entirely sure what they wanted me to do. They didn’t change much but they added Subheadings.

Not only does it make the post look much better it makes it easier to read. It breaks up the large block of text and makes it easier on the eyes. I went to check out some of my favorite blogs and the most of them utilize Subheadings no matter how personal the content. They still write in first person and have a lot of personal stories to tell so they don’t sacrifice personality for style.

Changing my Posting Format

In an effort to learn from my mistakes I am going to be changing the way I post on all of my blogs. I don’t have the time or energy to change all of my old posts but from this day forward you will see Subheadings. It will work quite well for this blog considering I love to write about different aspects of my life. I can create a title that sums up my week and tell you about my diet, my new baby chicks, my exercise, my interviews and whatever else strikes me as important to document. With subheadings you will get an idea of what I am going to talk about in the next few paragraphs.

Extra Lessons I Learned This Week

If you plan to live a life a little against the grain expect many people to get behind you. You must also expect just as many if not more to tell you how crazy you ideas are. I get a lot of support from like minded individuals but I have had to search for them at times. I often run into people who are just extreme in whatever they believe and they really get on my nerves. These are the people you will have the most trouble with.

Bringing the Farm To the City

I live in the city and I just bought 6 chickens (pictures here) I have two patches of strawberries to take care of and I intend to plant a huge garden at my mom’s house this year. I am also hoping for a great big porch garden here because I have not had any luck with an outdoor garden in the area of this yard suitable for gardening. I want to learn to live off the land as much as I can.

What I Want to be When I Grow up

 If that is not enough to get me admitted to the mental institution my career aspirations might get me sent there in a straight jacket. I also wish to only work part time in my schooled trade and part time writing while picking up various other projects. I am still working on what I want to do when I grow up. I think I want to live on a farm and raise animals, write about the farm life and maybe a fun novel or two, and run some sort of charity where children can come see the farm animals and learn how to grow food. Even I think it sounds crazy but it sounds like loads of fun!

My New Blog Longing for the Country Life

I started a new blog as an experiment in niche blogging called Longing for the Country Life. I have been reading ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income and the idea came to me. Okay that was a lie. To be honest the idea actually came to me because I didn't want this blog to be all about my dreams of having a farm. I was reading this book but I already had 4 posts on the new blog before I hit the chapter on niche blogging.

I put the book down to read a few magazines on chickens and didn't pick it again because I was learning so much about urban farming I just couldn't focus on a book about blogging. I feel like a new person when I think about my future life as a freelance writer living on a farm and producing much of my own food so the topic was a natural and easy progression. I have been doing tons of research on it and I just decided to share it all in one place.

I woke up yesterday and checked out some of my blog stats and found that the new blog has been doing quite well for a baby blog. Maybe it is a supernatural force guiding me in the right direction or maybe it is just the topic I picked to blog about. Somehow Longing for a Country Life it is doing better without a bunch of blog ads than my other blogs did at this stage.

I am not looking to make a fortune blogging but it would be great if I could make a little while sharing the knowledge I am gaining.So if you are interested in moving to the country or in urban farming visit my new blog. You will find some great tips and tricks as well as fun journey of turning this spoiled city girl into a hard working country girl.

Maybe Life Shouldn’t Be Easy

Today I was sitting here typing some blog posts and thinking about how sore I was after two days of heavy duty cleaning. I worked on a basement that had not been cleaned in many years and a garage that was in disarray when we moved in. Of course we added to the mess that was already in the garage and basement but never made a move to make things better.

We are always looking to make our life easier from kitchen gadgets that promise to make you preparation time a breeze to garden gadgets that turn the soil when you are sleeping. We don’t want to have to do the hard stuff. I have to wonder though if we all did the hard stuff would we have the weight problems we have today. If I spent hours each day cooking from scratch and cleaning and working in the garden would I need that cardio machine? If we get a farm and I have to get up and milk some goats and collect some eggs, clean out animal living quarters and feed them would I end up lose weight purely because I was physically active as a part of my regular day.

I think I would be a lot thinner if I were to do those things. I think our modern lifestyle of sitting on the couch or in a chair all day is why we must work so hard to lose weight. I am not saying that if you start a light cleaning routine that you reach your goal weight. What I am saying is that many people who don’t have physical jobs are like me. They are so out of shape and out of touch that when they take on a project that requires some moderate lifting, bending, squatting and standing they end up immobilized for a few days. I am saying if we kept it up and added to it we would end up thinner. We would build the muscles we needed to do some moderate physical labor without having to set aside extra time for a good workout. You won't make it to your high school weight or become a bodybuilder with this approach but if you have a couch potato gut you might just loose a good portion of it.

I have to admit I envy the people who get to spend their day working on their land to feed themselves and others. I wish I could have fresh veggies and raise the chickens and cows that I eat. I wish that had to work hard each day to grow and raise my own food. I have not done a survey nor do I have any scientific facts to back up my claims but I do believe if we stopped trying to find the quickest easiest method to accomplish our daily tasks our lives would benefit greatly. So what are you doing today to make your life harder?

This City Girl Longs for a Different Life

I stopped at a local Tractor Supply store on Friday. I heard they had baby chicks and I just wanted to take a peek. I was so tempted to bring a few home but you had to buy six and I just couldn't see surprising my hubby with that many chickens.

Instead I picked up a few magazines about chickens, goats and gardening/farming. I figured even if now is not the time for purchasing chickens I could at the very least learn about them, and of course look at the cute pictures of baby chicks.

Over the last few days I have read a lot about chickens and I still want my own flock of chickens. I just don't want them right now. I wouldn't mind having them now but there are quite a few preparations to make and then it is the question of how we would deal with long harsh winters and extreme summer temps.

Not to mention the fact that we rent this house and would have to ask permission. I think the one that screams no is that we have a dog that would not like to share her tiny back yard with chickens. She is not much for catching animals but she would be chasing them all over all the time. If she didn't accidental kill some chickens by pouncing on them or trying to make them play like a dog she would give them heart attacks. I would need a place where I could have a designated area for the chickens and preferably a large area. I would want my chickens to have a good sized spot for grazing.

What I would really like is a farm of my own. So here I am going to outline my ultimate dream home for you. Well at least I think it is what I want. We would probably be building a home on at least five acres of land. I would want to find a way to build the home so it was not entirely reliant on gas and power companies.  The problem is finding a great deal on land so we can afford to put a house on as well as out buildings and fences. I would also like a pond stocked with fish. I would like to have plenty of room for grazing animals and an organic garden.

What I really want is to live with less dependence on  other sources for survival. I would like to learn everything I can about making my own.....well everything. I keep saying to myself I guess I could live without....to save money here and there but it all comes down to living my dream or not.

I am guessing that I would have a lot of fun stuff to write about if I lived on a farm. I would have a lot to do as well and it would be like a mini vacation to sit down and write.

My hubby isn't to vocal about anything but he always talks about wanting goats. I am not so sure I would enjoy them the way he thinks he would but they have the potential to be very useful creatures. So I guess I should get him to sit down and we should discuss what we want and where we want to live. We are not even sure we want to stay in this area (another good reason not to buy animals now) so what we really need to do is work on a plan.

So Tired I Could Sleep For a Week

So I have been working on many things the last two weeks. I have been out to help with things like cleaning a goat stall that held two goats and had not been cleaned for quite some time. I loaded the back of a pick up truck three times. I then spent half another spraying round-up around all the fences and trees and I didn't get it all before I left. I also put a dent in the truck that I was driving which will put me behind on my saving schedule.  I did get to take my dog with me on the day I cleaned the stalls and she had a blast playing with goats from the other side of there fence, running around and chasing cats up trees. I enjoyed the work though I have to say I am thought I might change my mind once I got to doing the work but it feels great to come home tired and to have a more relaxed dog. It really feels like something I would love to do.

I have been trying to reconnect with the God I believe in and some amazing things have been happening. I believe it is God but even if isn't I feel better. I feel less stressed and I feel like I am starting to see new light. I can make it through a day at my paying job and not feel like shooting myself when I get home. Maybe it is just that I am doing more things I am enjoying in my free time. I have had more opportunities to do things I enjoy though since I started reading my Bible again and praying so for me it is not coincidence. I also have had 3 requests for showings on the duplex and a job interview that would pay me to work around animals with the possibility of me taking my dog to work. I have really been feeling relaxed more often especially when I am out on working on the farm. I get anxious mostly when I try to figure out how I am going to make the money to get a farm of my own and at least quit the day job that makes me stressed out. Maybe the farm thing means I should keep that job because I am less stressed out anyway.

I have also somehow in the last few weeks managed to say the right things to get my hubby to understand me more. I want him to help me with planning goals that doesn't mean they can't change and maybe he was just worried that I meant whatever we planned had to be done now or was not flexible. I don't know but he seems to at least be on board for now. He never has before and now I just need to get a second job so he knows that I am super serious about this. Everything really depends on our savings plans because we don't want a large loan no matter where or when we move. He can work more overtime and I can work two or three jobs but we don't want to have no life. We still need time to spend with each other. So we are going to have to balance things.

My hubby has decided it was a wise step to get different life insurance that costs less than half what we were paying for a lot more coverage. I love my insurance agent for car and home insurance but I think his prices and policies for life insurance are outrageous. As long as I live in Ohio I will have him as my agent for other things but I had to shop around for this. We have our exams next week so I won't cancel until they new insurance is in place. That will save us over $650 more a year. We have cut so much out of our budget we are starting to look a little crazy. A rough estimate on what we will be saving a year since I started cutting the budget is about $3000 dollars. I am really rather excited about being able to save more money towards our farm fund. Oh did I mention my paying job that was going to disappear instead gave me more hours. How is that for a miracle.

So I still have more work to do around this house today and I am going to take it easy this holiday weekend. I have some other stuff going on as well but I think I will save it for another post.

Horses, Dogs and Goats Oh My!

I went to my mom's friends house twice last week. I had a lot of fun I would love to just take my dog and pitch a tent and stay out there if the mosquitoes wouldn't eat me alive. She has 13 horses (I think that is what she said), two goats, two dogs, a bunch of cats and a bunny. I helped with what I could but there was not a lot for me to do when I was there. I helped put hay down for the horses and goats and I was able to bring a goat and a horse in for the night. I am going to remember to charge my camera one of these days and take it out there with me.

I would love to be able to share some pictures I took with you. I just hope I don't get annoying to Ruth the woman who lives there. My dog loves the goats but she is not fearful of the horses and it worries me a little. She loves the pond and I will need to get her out there at least a few times this summer to swim. The only time I have ever seen that dog get worn out for the evening is when she gets to go swimming.

Living this kind of life looks like a lot of hard work. It is physical labor but it is rewarding for those who love animals. I thought I would go out there and end up saying I can't do something like this but I came back feeling like I don't care how hard it is I would love to do something like this.

I also went to the garage sale and I made a small stack of money from stuff I would have just given away or let sit for a few more years. I don't know how much it is yet because we had 4 families participating and there was not a final count when we I left the last day. Everything counts these days. I will be saving every extra dime I can get my hands on because I want to have a big down payment on five or more acre. I will have to learn how to plan for everything which means I will also have to set back money for what I will need to purchase or build before we buy any animals.

Now that I have learned about work and for at least a little while longer I have two days at the shop I might be able to walk some dogs or something on the other days. I am not sure though if someone would want dog waling on just three weekdays. I need to find a few things I can do that will earn me some extra money but I don't have to tied down to for too many hours a day.

Got The Cleaning Bug

I have gotten the entire downstairs clean in just a few hours. I spent the last week in a half doing a good cleaning on each room and keeping things picked up and swept. I have been doing a few of the things I learned from FlyLady lessons. I just adapt them to my personality. One of her big things is to put your shoes on it gets you moving, but I hate shoes and I still move just fine with out them. On the other hand she has a lesson on shining your sink and keeping it that way. So one of the things I check before I leave for work and before I go to bed is the sink.

I have yet to finish the book because I have yet to get past the first step for more than a week or two at a time. I cleaned, swept and mopped my entire downstairs in such a short amount of time though by keeping up on all the little things during the week. So there is something to be said for keeping a shiny sink and sweeping the dog hair up every other day or more.

Now I have to get things ready for the yard sale this weekend and if I have time I will clean the front and back porches but I do need a little break. I have learned something about myself in the last week or so that I used to know but somehow lost it in the frustration of a super messy unorganized house. First music motivates me so I have been listening to a lot of music that keeps me working. Second when I get things done in my home I feel better about myself and more confident. It is not so much about the clean house but it is that I got up and did things. It is just a feeling of accomplishment and peace comes from knowing that my house is getting organized a little at a time. Next week I will start tackling the upstairs but it is hard because my hubby sleeps during the day. He can sleep through a lot but I am not sure the vacuum in the next room is one of them.

I have even had time to spend in prayer and typing in my journal today. I know it sounds a little crazy but thanks to the music FLYLEAF I am feeling much better today and I am not only motivated to get things done in my home I am motivated to connect with my faith again. I have realized that I have been childish and petty lately and questioning God for all the wrong reasons. I am ready to make a renewed commitment to my faith. I remembered that it is God that I love not the religion and it is all about a relationship with Him not about rules and regulations. I realized that I can be who God created me to be and still be a Christian. I lost sight of that because I was listening to all the crap around me. Thanks Flyleaf for reminding me that you don't have to come from a cookie cutter to have faith!

So just on a side note I get to go to see what it is like to take care of many animals tonight. My mom has a friend from work that has goats and horses and many other animals and she has offered to let me see what it is like to take care of them. I offered to help for free so I can learn what it is like before making the plunge into country life. I am hoping my hubby will get up and go with me the first time because I want him to watch the dog while I learn. She said I could bring my dog but I don't know what she will do around so many other animals. So if my hubby goes I am going to have him bring the camera so I can have some pictures for you and to go along with my Country Living Posts.

Why I Want A Farm

I am trying to do a little soul searching here so bear with me. It all started with my hubby saying he wanted a goat and the both of us not wanting our neighbors so close you can hear everything they say when they sit on their porch and you are trying to sleep. We also didn't want to live in a big house in a fancy subdivision where there are rules about everything. Some of the subdivisions even require that all cars are parked inside at night. We have 4 cars so we would need to build and extra large garage.

So originally we wanted at least a half an acre of land where we were allowed to have a goat (two as we have now learned is better) and we can park as many cars as we want. Oh and we love dogs so we wanted somewhere our dog could play without running into fences every few feet.

Sadly one of our reasons for wanting to not have close neighbors is also we are not very social beings. We don't want to socialize unless planned and we don't like anyone including neighbors dropping in. I know some people sit around their house in the ready to go out clothes but my hubby and i don't have kids so we hang out in nightgowns and boxer shorts. We are never prepared for company unless you call first. If you give me a few minutes to get dressed I am all good but I still don't plan my life around people possibly dropping by.

I am not sure how we decided we want a farm except we have been talking a little about being able to provide for ourselves. I would love it if we could work to save and purchase a farm with cash but I don't know how doable that is. I have many different thoughts on how to get started and the one that seems most likely is that we buy about 3-5 acres no more than 20 miles from where we are now and see what we can do with that before we decide to move far away and make a go of it without jobs. I only work 2 days a week right now so I could spend my days off caring for animals and crops. I would only need my hubby's help on things that were super hard and on the days I worked. He only has to work 5 days a week but he usually picks up some overtime right now and works 6 days.

As far as I can tell though farming is expensive on the start up. So whatever we do would probably have to be something we started slowly to provide for our needs and then worked into a business. Or we would have to get a great deal on an up and running farm with all the equipment included. If you have been reading my blog for any amount of time you know that I am not a big fan of debt so I am going to have to do a lot more research and once we decide the path we want to take I will need to plan. The problem there is my hubby is not the planning type. He actually gets irritated with me that I like to plan years ahead of time. Actually a lot of people get irritated with that so I usually just end up unhappy and frustrated. I don't know that it is a personality flaw because it must be a useful trait to some one. I also know that I don't want to stay here forever just because we the dream seems impossible.

So now to get to the heart of the matter even if we do this I have to make big changes in my own behavior. I have to learn a lot about farming but I also have to learn not to be lazy. I do a lot of stuff on the computer that is just a waste of time. I don't have a plan when I sit down on the computer and hours fly by. I am going to have to start with the time I have and learn to make better use of it. I can type blog posts in an hour or less a day. I can probably accomplish what I would like on the computer each day with an hour to two. I don't need to check my email every two hours or less and I really don't need to check facebook 50 times a day either. I do need to practice my farming skills in my small garden and work the landscaping in my yard to get used to outdoor work. I need to find someone willing to train me on the basics of caring for farm animals and maybe give me useful tips on all things related to farming. I need to get off my bottom and work hard to make this dream come true.

So after I finish my coffee today I am going to go outside and work if it is not raining and then I am going to come inside and clean up the mess we keep bringing in from the outside. I do believe the first step is getting my body used to manual labor again and planning my day so that I can get the most done. I am thinking that working all day will have an added benefit of weight loss too so it is all good, my days at work will be like days off since I sit a lot at my job.

By the way I am typing this on Sunday and scheduling it to post on Monday so I can make the most of my day off and stay away from the computer as much as possible.

Learning About Farm Life

Good morning to all. I have a busy day ahead of me since I got up late. I couldn't fall asleep last night so I didn't get up early.I spent the first part of my morning trying to promote my blogs then I ran across Swampy Acres Farms and began reading about chickens. There is a wealth of information on raising chickens on this website. The great part is it is easy to read and not to technical.

I am looking at at least 1-5 years before we can start looking at a farm or a property where we can raise a few farm animals. So I want to learn how to take care of any animals I might purchase well in advance. Since I live in the city and can't have any farm animals I can't even have a few hens. I don't have the room for them and my dog. I know they don't need a lot of room but I also know that it would be better to wait until I have more room and am less likely to disturb the neighbors.

I was actually hoping to find a way to learn about what it is like to raise farm animals. I don't really know anyone that has a farm so I have no idea how to learn other than to read. I live in the heart of Toledo Ohio but I know there are areas with in driving distance that have farms. I just don't know how to go about learning from someone who knows their stuff. This is not something that I can go to school for or apply for an internship. If I knew someone I would offer to work for knowledge and maybe some milk or eggs but no actual money.

I would like to research what kind of farm animals are reasonable to keep and save us more than they cost us. I am not looking to make a big profit on farming I am just hoping that whatever we buy will help us come closer to supporting our own living expenses. We don't have any concrete goals yet but we would like to have some chickens for eggs and for meat. We would also like to have some milk producing animals but that would be an addition after we learned enough to raise chickens. From what I have read they are not extremely hard to learn to care for. Don't get me wrong I realize they are work but they are not say the kind of work you have to do if you have a cow. Chickens are not super expensive to keep once you have all the fences and coops in place so they are (as far as I can tell) the perfect farm animal to start. Still I tend to like to know what I am getting myself into before I make a plunge.

I know we have lots of time to figure this out but it is not impossible that our duplex would sell and we could find a great deal on a small farm in our area. This is not likely but also not impossible the only good thing about the housing market anywhere near us is that if you are buying a house there are a lot of great deals. Selling a house is near impossible though.

Friday Finances

It is no secret that I am a Dave Ramsey fan and I would love to follow all of his principals. The only problem with that is that my hubby doesn't agree with him on everything so I have to compromise. It is not worth it to have a marriage issue over something like how much to put into retirement.

So what I first have to mention is that my hubby is not a big spender anymore and neither am I but we both have times where we really want a big item. Now we save for it and if we still want it when we have the money we buy it. The things we don't agree on are things like budgeting every dime and the amount of money that should go into savings and/or retirement.

I highly recommend reading anything by Dave Ramsey but I am learning to take his major principals and apply them as much as possible. So on that note I have done a lot of stuff this month to save money. I am learning to eat cheaper as this is a huge bill for me. I like to eat expensive meat like ground buffalo and steak. I am replacing some of the ground buffalo with ground sirloin when I find it on sale. It is not as healthy but it won't kill me to eat it sometimes. I am not good at cutting the grocery bill and I am trying to learn to do just that.

I have canceled my cable and phone so that saved $70 dollars a month and I quit selling Pure Romance because I am horrible at selling and I was just spending money approximately $50 a month. I have plans for joining a garage sale this month and I am giving up many of my treasured books. I am also planning to change our life insurance with term insurance so which will save us about 1000 dollars a year but I plan to take that money and put into an investment of some sort or towards the house we eventually want to buy.

I still really want to sell that duplex too because it is just such a big deal all the time. The good news is that the wiring issue I posted about yesterday is because my hubby who went over to fix the doorbell left some wires exposed and they just need to be covered wires. So the only replacement will be the wires for the doorbells. It will not cost a small fortune to fix the duplex. If we do all or most of it it will just be a few hundred dollars.

I have a good size savings that I have designated toward a house down payment and I was afraid that I was going to have to dip into that to fix things at the duplex. I have a 2 week check sitting here that should cover most of the repairs. It was going to go to savings but now it will go to repairs. No big deal since I only work 4 days in a two week period it will just take another two weeks to put that much in savings. Things could be so much worse so I am trying to be positive.

My hubby seems to be not so sure about moving far away now. We have a long way to go with saving and can decide that later. We live in an area hit hard by the housing market crisis so if we were to by some miracle sell the duplex we could find a great deal on a small version of the kind of property we would want and give it a trial run. We would have to commute to work a little further like maybe 30-45 minutes instead of 10-15 minutes. I saw a house with 2 acres for 80 thousand dollars only about 15 minutes from our house but I don't want to look too much just yet. We could raise some chickens and have a huge garden and still work our jobs and if we hate it we could stay where we are and just keep a small garden and just keep a few hens for eggs. 2 acres or so is still manageable as a yard and would be great fun for an additional dog.

Goats and Chickens

Okay I have the book I have on the side and I am going to read it. I bought it for my hubby a few years ago because he really wants a goat. Well we can't have one in the city and he knows that. Now I am thinking that we might be able to work towards having some farm animals so I have to learn about them.

I have a library book about chickens and a lot of gardening books. I would like to be able to make much if not all of my own food and cook a lot from scratch. So I am trying to learn. My hubby picked a huge amount of strawberries yesterday and he cut them up and I made a strawberry pie this morning. Well sort of......get ready to laugh............I messed up the pie. This is only the second pie I have ever made and I tried to fit too much topping in one pie and the top shell kind of melted off. It is a very ugly but pie. I tasted the filling from around the pie on the cookie sheet and it tastes awesome and so did the crust that baked on the pan. I should have a very tasty ugly pie. I overfilled the peach pie I made the first time and it didn't hurt but there was not as much liquid I really should have thought about that but I didn't. I did cheat and use frozen pie crust but one thing at a time.

It is still nice to be able to make something from what my hubby and I have grown. I can do this I know I can I just have to work hard to get things done. I have to start living like I would if I were living on that farm making my own food. I need to learn to make things from scratch (one thing at a time) and I have to get up early and take care of my plants even on work days. I am going to work hard to learn to sew better as well.

So if you know of any blogs or books about these things let me know! 

Extra Cash To Stockpile For My Farm

Okay so I sold two books to my sister today and got $10 dollars plus I will get $50 for spending half a day weeding at my moms house. It was hard work but I was active for at least 4 hours and then went swimming with my nephew for an hour after.
So I am not making a fortune with odd jobs and selling stuff but I am also not tied down to a job but two days a week. I have the weekend plus Monday to get my own yard done. I have sewing lessons for tomorrow morning and then I have a house to clean and a ton of yard work to do.
I left the donation widget up and called it my farm savings. While I would love for my readers to donate to my awesome cause I really don't need your money. Then again if you have plenty to give and you would love to see pictures of my future baby goats and chicks then by all means I will take your money. That being said the donation widget stays but I truly don't expect to earn any money from it. What I would like though is to get visitors and earn a little from my blogs again but that will come when I post more.

So it is time to help my hubby with his video game and then off to bed. He has promised to cut our fresh strawberries from the garden so I can make a pie in the morning. Thanks for reading!